City’s books need better keeping

We have been told by an independent auditor of Worcester’s finances that no malfeasance or mismanagement was found.

That is not to say, however, that there weren’t areas in which the auditor found some rather slipshod bookkeeping practices.

We have already reported how the city, aka the taxpayer, is increasingly being left holding the bag for police off-duty detail payments.

In a head-scratcher of a municipal benefit deal, police working off-duty details are paid not directly by those who contract their services, but by the city. The city, after paying the officers, then has to do the grunt work of collecting from the contractors.

Understandably, a number of these contractors don’t see any urgent need to pay the city. According to the independent auditor, the amount of money the city has to transfer from its general account to cover delinquent detail payments is growing — from about $8,000 in 2008 to about $350,000 in 2012. Some of the contractors take months if not years to pay the city, if they pay at all.

As of the June 30, 2012, for example, the audit identified $255,000 of about $896,000 owed the city as more than a year overdue. The city, according to the auditor, “has no formal policies and procedures for writing off amounts that are not collectible.”

Write-off policy? I can’t wait until they develop one of those for all the taxes and fees homeowners pay each year.

And what about this other finding by the independent auditor that the city’s Community Development Block Grant program basically lacks oversight.

“None of the project files tested contained evidence of any pre-inspections being performed,” the auditor wrote. “Additionally, one of the project files tested did not contain a final inspection report prior to making payments, but rather an interim report documenting that none of the work had actually been performed.”

The auditor also found about $201,163 in block grant funding incurred during fiscal year 2012 to be in questioned. This might not rise to malfeasance, but it sure reflects a lack of management and clearly explains the debacle at 5 May St., the affordable housing project that chewed up $2.3 million in public funds without putting a single housing unit on line.

It was discovered that funds were paid to the developer of the May Street project without sufficient verification to meet state and federal guidelines. The city ended up having to repay the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development $100,000, and to put some $243,063 back in its lead abatement program for ineligible expenditures.

The city then had to buy the May Street property for $200,000 at an auction that didn’t attract any other suckers, I mean buyers.

How about the auditor’s contention that the city has never performed a financial data audit of Republic Parking System, which manages off-street parking operations and collected about $3 million on behalf of the city in 2012?

Among other findings of the audit, the Department of Public Works deposition records for 16 of 17 receipts examined contained dollar amounts that had been crossed out and were illegible, and that the auditor said made it difficult to determine if the deposit amounts reconciled with what was posted in the city’s general ledger.

Despite these and a number of other questionable financial practices, the independent auditor was able to conclude that “There were no significant deficiencies disclosed during the audit of the basic financial statements (of the City of Worcester, Massachusetts).”

Perhaps what the auditor meant to say was that while there were a few material weaknesses, in the areas where the city’s hand is in taxpayers’ pockets, its financial grip remains ironclad.